For longtime Colbert mayor, job's gotten easier

There's no official list of the country's longest-serving mayors, but if there were one, Colbert's John Waggoner surely would be on it.

Waggoner recently began his 20th two-year term as mayor of this Madison County town - his 39th year.

Waggoner, 72, said he never set out to be get elected as mayor of the town of about 500 people for even one year, much less the 40 he will have served at the end of this term.

But back in 1969, when Waggoner was first elected, city council members and mayors were "turning over pretty regular" in Colbert, and a group of council members and other residents asked Waggoner to meet with them, he said.

"That's when they jumped on me to run," he said.

The first year, Waggoner and the council members paid their taxes early so the city would have enough money to make the city payroll.

There's been a lot less controversy since then, though 40 people did come to one heated council meeting about eight or nine years ago, Waggoner said. The issue that divided the town was speed bumps, which had been installed on one street to slow down some teenage speedsters.

With so many opposed to the speed bumps, the council decided to sell them to a neighboring town and ask the Madison County sheriff to do more traffic enforcement in town.

"I like keeping things on an even keel," said Waggoner, who's also seen the city's finances improve since that first year.

"We don't really have that many earth-shaking problems, really," said Waggoner's wife of 50 years, Ann. "Maybe dogs."

Ann Waggoner makes the mayor's job a family one - she's worked part time at city hall for about 20 years, she said.

Tending to the city's day-to-day business keeps them close to Colbert, but that's fine, Ann Waggoner said.

"We're kind of homebodies. We were always tied down, but we chose that," she said.

The couple's daughters and grandchildren also live nearby. Angie Waggoner is principal of Danielsville Elementary School and Alisa Shiflet lives nearby with her husband, Corey, and the Waggoners' two young grandsons, Austin, 6, and Peyton, 4.

The city's budget this year calls for spending just more than $300,000. And unlike Waggoner's first year, the mayor and council won't have to pay their taxes early to make budget. The city begins 2008 with a $42,000 surplus, a contingency fund built up in previous years, Waggoner said.

That includes Waggoner's salary as mayor - $3,000. It was $150 a year when Waggoner took office in January 1969.

The mayor's job is simpler than it used to be for Waggoner. When he began, part of the job was running the city's small water system with one other city worker. One year that meant spending Christmas Eve repairing broken water pipes, he said.

Now, a private company runs the water system.

Waggoner's philosophy as mayor isn't complicated.

"The main thing is just having as much common sense as you can," he said.

But the people in town usually have made it easy, he said.

"I can't emphasize enough the good folks I've served with, and the good folks in town," he said.

Waggoner, the son of a sharecropper, has lived almost all his life in or near Colbert, except for a military hitch from 1958-61.

"My dad rented all of the vacant land here in Colbert, and we'd plant cotton," said Waggoner, who can recall plowing those cotton fields with a mule.

Nowadays, Waggoner makes his living as a buyer for Athens Hardware, specializing in pumps.

Mayor and council terms are just two years, but no one has ever run against Waggoner, who was once again re-elected without opposition in November's city election. In Waggoner's nearly 40 years, there only have been 15 council members, he said.

Waggoner still hasn't accomplished all he wants to as mayor. He'd particularly like to see the town's old high school restored to usefulness.

But Waggoner said he knows now he's got to call it quits sometime, and this two-year term might be his last, he said.

"I'm thinking seriously about this being my last two years. We need some fresh ideas. You get kind of old and set in your ways. Younger people can see things in a different light, a better light."